


Stripes and Stitches

by tiamatv



Series: Stripes [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accountant Castiel (Supernatural), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Baker Dean Winchester, Crafts, Knitter Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Meet-Cute, Pining, Quarantine, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24729514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/pseuds/tiamatv
Summary: Castiel bared the unmarked skin of his left forearm, shoving his sleeve down to the elbow. “There. Does that answer your question?” he asked, irritably turning his hand from front to back and wiggling his fingers. “No, I do not have a soulbond, and no, this is not an Offering. Why is that where everyone’s mind goes? I just like toknit.”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gabriel/Kali (Supernatural), Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
Series: Stripes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808167
Comments: 153
Kudos: 817
Collections: Mixtape Book Club Podcast - Discussed Fics, ProfoundBond Exchange: Quarantine & Chill, The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	Stripes and Stitches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shipperofdarkness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipperofdarkness/gifts).



> My first time participating in the [Profound Bond Gift Exchange](https://profoundnet.fandom.com/wiki/Profound_Bond_Exchange)!
> 
> (Pssst, [shipperofdarkness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipperofdarkness), I truly hope you enjoy this... come find me on Discord once you have read it—I would like to write you a smutty epilogue!)
> 
> All my thanks to [zahlibeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zahlibeth), who helped ease my misgivings when I wrote the first draft of this at some insane pace, then patiently betaed the second draft, and altogether was a trooper through my nervous flailing about this whole thing!

As a whole, Castiel didn’t mind knitting around strangers, simply because he really didn’t care what they thought. He certainly didn’t mind knitting around family—that would have been nonsensical, considering his family.

However, knitting around acquaintances could, at times, be a little… annoying.

Castiel realized this, of course, when he pulled out his project bag. He stopped by the bakery most days after work, and the regulars all knew him. However, he also realized that no-one _currently_ here could really be counted as a stranger, or even an acquaintance. Considering the company he was keeping, it should hardly have mattered that it was the first time he’d brought out a craft—it was past closing, after all, and he was here primarily to keep Dean company. Dean had seen him doing and saying things that were _much_ more conspicuous than knitting.

But by the third time he glanced up to catch Dean watching the flow of his fingers through needles and two colors of yarn, Castiel had had enough.

He slammed the brioche-knit shawl he was working on down onto the table in front of him, firmly enough that he knocked his own pattern holder to the side. “Dean?”

Dean started—guiltily, Castiel thought, one hand still hovering in the air with a piece of wax paper dangling from his fingers. He put it down hurriedly. “Uh—yeah?” Dean’s forehead furrowed deeply as Castiel raised his left hand very clearly into the air, palm out—until Castiel started to unbutton his left wrist cuff with sharp, annoyed jerks. Then Dean’s eyes snapped wide. “Hey, _whoa,_ buddy, what are you—"

Castiel bared the unmarked skin of his left forearm, shoving his sleeve down to the elbow. “There. Does that answer your question?” he asked, irritably turning his hand from front to back and wiggling his fingers. He scooped up his project again without replacing his sleeve and resumed his knitting, maybe tensioning his yarn just a little bit more tightly than he should.

Dean stared at him for long enough that Castiel felt his shoulders hunch with annoyance. “Dude.” Dean finally turned away, picked up the spray bottle of glass cleaner he’d been using on the display counter, and tore off a piece of paper towel. “ _Someone’s_ touchy about their crafting.”

“I feel like it’s better to get that out of the way sooner rather than later,” Castiel grumbled, and he was well aware it sounded stiff—even stiffer than he normally did. His needles clicked loudly, sounding annoyed even to his own ears. “ _No_ , I do not have a soulbond, and _no_ , this is not an Offering. Why is that where everyone’s mind goes? I just like to _knit_.”

Dean blinked, looked up, and stopped wiping. “Waittasecond. What? _Cas_ , do people really ask?”

What kind of a question was that? “I’m guessing you’ve never tried to craft in public. Dean, we live in a society where until about forty years ago _public Offerings_ were still the norm,” Castiel answered, dryly. Just imagining the potential humiliation of that made Castiel shudder. He’d never wanted to Offer, but even the _idea_ of presenting something made by his hand to someone, and having everyone watch as the dark red stripe of a soulbond did _not_ appear around their wrist, was a horror. “Yes, they _ask_. It’s like people patting pregnant women’s stomachs unprompted or pinching babies’ cheeks.”

“Yeah, pretty sure neither of those other things are okay either,” Dean pointed out, but he leaned an elbow against the counter. “Sorry, buddy, but I, uh… was just kinda just wondering what you were making.” He shrugged. “S’nice. I learned how to knit in middle school, y’know, like we all did, and I’ve never seen anything that looks like that.”

 _Oh_.

Castiel looked down at the two-color brioche-stitch project in his lap, the flow of colors and complex increases and decreases like autumn leaves on a background of blue. It _was_ going to be a gift, yes—just not the kind that people automatically seemed to think of when they saw someone doing crafts. And it _wouldn’t_ have been the sort of knit-purl simple stitches that they all learned in school. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah.”

Castiel added a few more stitches of brioche, aggressively tugging on his yarn-overs, then sighed. “I bit your head off,” he muttered, not raising his chin.

“Sure did.” Dean snorted, and gave the Dangerously Delicious display counter just one more swipe. “You sure showed me. So you can go ahead and button your sleeve back up now.” Castiel fought the urge to flinch as Dean’s eyes flicked towards him, his gaze hard. “Cas, you’re one of the bluntest people I know. If you had a soulmate or were planning on Offering for someone or something, I’m pretty sure you’d’ve just _told me_.”

Castiel wouldn’t have, no. But the reason for that being frankly impossible was pointedly not looking at him, and Dean really had no way to know that. Castiel’s wrists throbbed, and he put his knitting down and shook them out, grimacing.

“I apologize,” he began, softly, and he did mean that. Castiel was well aware he was _not_ , as a whole, good with people, but Dean was different. “It’s… it gets… tiresome.”

It was. The questions were often rude, and intrusive; they almost invariably reduced what was an art of itself to romance, and not everything _was_ romance. Sometimes Castiel _was_ a little wistful about the fact that his wrists were bare, but that wasn’t why he got annoyed. He strongly suspected that he would never see those soulmate bands on himself anyway. One had to go out and _meet_ people to find a soulmate.

He’d tried, for awhile—honestly, he had, the way everyone did in their twenties, thinking that he’d see happiness and forever stripe his skin—but after long enough… well.

Dean met his eyes, the hollows of his cheekbones shadowed like mysteries in the bakery’s half light, his eyes a quiet secret. Castiel swallowed.

“S’okay. I guess it kinda would,” Dean’s lips tipped up, just a little crooked. This time, Castiel didn’t try to look away from his eyes—the warmth in them, the way they caught green at some angles, chocolate in others, like alexandrite _._ “I sorta get it.” Dean held out both his arms and peered down the line of them, critically—he was, as always, covered to the wrist in long-sleeved flannel, his cuffs neatly buttoned. “I dunno, is it weird that it makes me feel kinda old when I see all the kids walking around now with wrists out whether they have soulbonds marks or not? I keep thinking I’ll do it someday, though. Y’know, wear short sleeves in summer or something.” His eyes dropped to where Castiel’s bare wrist still rested on the edge of the table, and the bow of his full, pink lips curved—naughty, teasing. With the ease of long experience, Castiel didn’t gulp breath. “Hey, maybe we both should, you wild man, you.”

Castiel glared at him and pointedly buttoned up his cuff again, one-handed. “You’re _impossible_ ,” he grumbled, but he pulled his knitting back into his lap, straightening out the graphed pattern he’d misplaced in his pique.

“Dude, I am fucking _adorable_ ,” Dean singsonged, grinning, and sauntered off to finish cleaning the coffee station.

Castiel rolled his eyes. ‘Adorable’ wasn’t what he thought of Dean, no, but he certainly wasn’t going to tell him _that_ , either. With Dean, it _was_ easier—safer, sometimes—to concentrate on the physical… not least because the physical was fantastic.

Dean had wonderful shoulders, Castiel knew—broad, moving smooth under the button-down flannels he and his brother both wore when they took turns at Dangerously Delicious’s counter. The covered forearms were a little conservative in this day and age, Dean wasn’t wrong, but that was the only thing about Dean that _was._ Even with his bad knee, he always walked as if he had places to be and girls to kiss when he got there. Castiel generally tried not to stare, _always_ tried not to lick his lips, because it would have been rude to ogle a stranger to begin with and even worse to ogle a friend.

Fortunately, his pattern was complex enough that Castiel had to think about what he was doing, trace the flow of the colors across his fingers and needles, and therefore _not_ watch Dean moving confidently back and forth across the span of his bakery.

Having a crafting hobby of some sort in one’s back pocket was still overwhelmingly common—Castiel himself had begun crochet lessons at six, just like all of his siblings before him. The old convention of finding one’s soulmate through traditional handicrafts still rang true in most societies, after all— _made by my hands and only for yours_. Castiel still found the concept rather mysterious, but he supposed there was something a little magical about the whole thing.

“It’s all about the _Intent_ ,” Anna had told him, when he’d been much younger, solemn in her certainty and the use of capital letters. “If you don’t have Intent, then nothing else can happen. That’s what starts it all off.”

From the perspective of many years later, Castiel didn’t necessarily disagree with that—though he would freely acknowledge that Anna, soulbonded, clearly knew a lot more about the matter than he did. As someone who crafted on the behalf of the people he cared about all the time, Castiel did understand the idea of making something with one’s own hands as one thought of a person. It seemed like a _nice_ concept, that Intent meant thinking of one’s beloved and putting that caring into what was being made under one’s hands. He even understood the idea of Offering, presenting that gift, and Acceptance, the red stripe appearing on the recipient’s left wrist.

Of course, being as how Castiel was who he was, he’d had _questions_.

It had not made sense to Castiel, even as a child, why only the first band appeared then, and only on the recipient’s wrist—why didn’t a band appear on the wrist of both the giver _and_ the recipient, if a gift had to be both offered _and_ accepted? What was so different about the gift that the recipient gave back to the giver—the Response—that caused the other three bands to appear in the Union effect, encircling both sets of wrists?

Castiel had learned to not bring that sort of thing up. He would have thought that asking about the metaphysics of a soulbond couldn’t possibly be more offensive than someone craning their neck over to see if they could see red underneath another person’s sleeves, but apparently it was. People normally looked uncomfortable when he mentioned it, and sometimes told him that there were some things he just couldn’t ask.

Castiel would never understand conversation.

Castiel blinked and glanced up from his knitting at the clunk in front of him, and found himself looking down at a coffee mug. This one proclaimed _“Greetings from Kansas City, Missouri!”_ and the coffee in it smelled just a little stale, but it was still warm enough to steam. Dean slid into the seat across from him, a mug from Richmond, VA in his hand. “It’s the last from the decaf warmer, should still be okay,” he noted, and poked the squeeze bottle of honey towards Castiel with a crooked smile and a mumble of, “You weirdo.”

Castiel didn’t bother asking if he could pay for it anymore. They’d already had that conversation many times: when the bakery was open, he won, but once it was closed for the day, this was Dean’s domain.

Dean settled back into the chair, languid, holding his mug in both hands, and Castiel murmured his thanks, concentrating on doctoring his coffee so Dean didn’t fill his vision. In the dimmer lights of the bakery after closing, with just the privacy of the two of them, sometimes it was harder to remember the things he knew he couldn’t forget. He carefully relocated his knitting back to the table, and caught Dean looking interestedly at it again.

“It’s for Kali,” Castiel patted the soft coils of his project with one hand. He’d thought of her as he’d picked through his yarn. There was nothing soft about _her_ , but this wouldn’t be the delicate eternity of pale lace that he’d knit for Anna’s wedding. This would be warm and plush, and the complex arcs of the fire colors on a blue background would be stunning around her shoulders.

“Kali? Oh—your brother’s fiancee, right? Wedding present?” Castiel nodded, and Dean grinned. “How is the guy? I gotta say, glad you sent him our way, but I never had anyone waltz in here and clear out the entire cupcake case before noon before. I mean, how many employees does he even _have?_ ”

“Oh. Is _that_ what he told you?” Castiel answered, with a snort. “He _did_ bring a dozen to Sunday dinner that week, but I can’t vouch for where any of the rest of them went to.”

Dean laughed, and sipped his coffee. “Your family sounds pretty crazy,” he admitted. “But must be nice, I dunno. It was just me and Sammy for a long time, but at least Jess is pretty awesome.” He glanced around conspiratorially, grinning as he leaned in—as if there could possibly still be anyone here; they were an hour past closing, and Castiel knew it was Dean’s late day, Sam had left earlier in the afternoon. “Cas, I gotta tell you. It’s freaking hilarious, Sam hasn’t even decided if he wants to go wrists out yet, and he _still_ turns beet red every time he looks down at his arms.”

Castiel blinked, but not even his residual annoyance and embarrassment with himself could override the surge of warmth—not related to Dean’s closeness this time, though. “Oh! Did he…?”

“Yeah, a month ago. I guess that shows me, though, I always used to make fun of him for that jewelry making elective he took in high school.” Dean nodded eagerly, expansive, his eyes bright and happy as he gestured with his coffee cup. “He didn’t want to tell anyone until Jess gave her Response, though. Didn’t want anyone to pressure or rush her? But I don’t think God left room for sense in that big brain of his, ‘cause, you know, Jess is a _nurse_ , so of course her scrubs have short sleeves.” He chuckled, shrugging, and his eyes dipped to the project on Castiel’s needles. “Wish I’d known you knit, man, ‘cause she really could’ve used some help. That beanie she made him is _ugly_.”

Castiel smiled over the lip of his coffee cup. “Isn’t it the Intent that counts?” he suggested. “Technically she could have given him a folded-up bit of origami or… or a _cookie_ and it would probably have come to the same.”

Dean blinked at him, then tossed his head back and _laughed,_ uproarious, the line of his neck and his throat achingly pure. Castiel felt his chest stutter, but… he was used to that, by now, used to the way his mouth curved to answer that laughter. “ _Wow_. Cas, man,” he noted, fondly, “I think you might be the most disgustingly practical person I’ve ever met, an’, you know, I was an _Army Ranger._ ”

“I’m aware that it’s an unpopular opinion,” Castiel confessed, “and I realize that of _course_ it’s important to put effort and thought and care into something one plans to offer one’s life partner.” He lifted his chin with determination. “But I’m still pretty sure the object itself is not the _point_.”

“Well, clearly not, ‘cause Sammy’s wrists are striped red and it’s _still_ a really ugly hat.” Dean snickered at his own joke.

Castiel cocked his head, smiling to himself. “Did I ever tell you about Michael?” he asked.

Dean tipped his chair backwards and onto its back legs, almost unbalancing his coffee onto himself. His bad leg swung, lazily. “Your oldest brother?”

“Yes.” Castiel chuckled at the memory. “Our mother, well, she’s… um.” There were quite a few words that Castiel could use for Becky Novak, many of them impolite, and some of which he was very sure his siblings had used more than once. Still, his mother meant no harm. “My parents aren’t bonded, but she’s very… romantic? I suppose? She wanted to make _very_ sure that all her children at least had the _opportunity_ to… well. You know.” He shrugged. “The same reason every middle school has mandatory crafting classes.”

Castiel had opinions on _that,_ too, but as an accountant and not an educator, he didn’t really think his opinions mattered for much.

Dean smirked. “So we can all put the stripes on our ball and chain?”

Castiel rolled his eyes in answer. “Precisely. She pressed them on us basically as soon as we were less likely to jab ourselves in the eyeball, and she must have pressed too hard with Michael, because he _hated_ them. I was too young to remember the way they used to fight about it, but I _do_ remember him failing his electives and flinging a crochet hook all the way across the dining room table.”

Dean huffed out a laugh. “I heard my dad used to be like that,” he chuckled. “Said he didn’t need no damned maker’s art to be a mechanic and no damned soulmate to be happy.”

Castiel inclined his head. “Well… right. Exactly. It got bad enough by the time he was in high school that we really thought—even me, I was eight or nine—he was never going to Offer for anyone. Just out of pure spite.”

“Well, _nowadays_ that wouldn’t be an issue, but what was that, like nearly thirty years ago?” Dean asked. Castiel nodded, and Dean pursed his lips in a whistle. “Oh, I bet _that_ went across great. I mean, used to be that even saying you didn’t want ‘em or you could wait for ‘em was like…”

Most people didn’t consider finding a soulmate a necessity for dating or love or commitment or marriage _anymore_ —thank God—but they’d all heard the stories of back-alley tattoos and cochineal skin dyes or even scarification.

“Exactly,” Castiel agreed. _Now_ he knew more people with blank wrists and wedding rings than with the red streak of a soulbond around their wrists, but back then, well, between his mother’s hysterics and his father’s attempts to mediate by dragging her and Michael to _therapy,_ it had been a little… chaotic. “So, of course, after all that? The week before he left to join the Marines, Michael crocheted a giant pink flower and Offered to Angelica.”

The front legs of Dean’s chair slapped back to the floor, and he nearly spilled coffee on himself, fumbling the mug before putting it down. “Wait. A giant… crocheted pink flower,” Dean parroted, dumbly. “This is… _Michael_ , right? The guy even _you_ call ‘a rigid assbutt?’”

Since he had probably called Michael that more than once in Dean’s hearing, Castiel couldn’t argue. “A giant crocheted pink flower,” Castiel agreed. “As big as his open hand. Because we all learned to crochet them as kids, Michael doesn’t really have much imagination, and it was the _only thing_ he remembered how to make. And then he never picked up a crochet hook again.” He felt the creases around his eyes deepen as he grinned. “He was the only boy in his Basic training group with soulmate bands and a framed cross-stitch prayer for his safety above his bunk.”

Dean snorted loudly, then shook his head, chuckling, his chin dipping towards his chest as he rocked his chair up again. “Guess your family’s lucky, huh? One with stripes already, one just waiting for a Response?” he noted. Castiel cocked his head in curiosity. He didn’t think he’d mentioned… “Gabe told me. Chocolate chili truffle with a bit of gold leaf?” Dean bobbed his head in what looked like approval. “Gotta say, that’s a classier Offering than a lot. They’re waiting for the wedding to finalize the Union?”

Castiel rolled his eyes. Some people were private about their soulbonds, and some… weren’t.

And then there was Gabriel. Who bragged about his soulbond to _everyone_. Including the owner of the Dangerously Delicious bakery on Massachusetts Avenue, apparently.

(Though Dean was absolutely correct and Castiel, and possibly _everyone_ , had honestly been surprised about the elegance of Gabriel’s Offering.)

Castiel didn’t really know _what_ Gabe was compensating for, though—it wasn’t as if anyone cared that Gabe’s wrists were still empty, least of all Gabe. Besides, Castiel had it on good authority that Kali had already made his Response: a blown glass candy jar that Gabriel would no doubt be as proud of and obnoxious about as he was about his beautiful fiancee and the single scarlet band on her left wrist. Anna joked that Gabriel already went wrists-out pretty commonly, but that after the wedding and the Union he’d be wearing tank tops for _months_.

“Yes, but… actually,” he admitted. “Anna’s bonded, too.”

Dean whistled, softly, through his teeth. “Wow. Huh. I see why you’re sensitive about stripes.”

Castiel glared at him. “I’m _not_ ,” he grumbled. “I just happen to think that _assuming_ that because someone is crafting something that it must automatically have some kind of romantic impli…” he trailed off and glared as Dean’s smirk widened. “You’re teasing me.”

“Can’t help it, buddy, sometimes you make it so easy,” Dean agreed, and this time, he laughed.

Castiel should not encourage Dean by laughing with him. He really shouldn’t. But there were a lot of things he probably shouldn’t do when it came to Dean. “If I ever bring Hael, don’t tease her,” Castiel warned, still chuckling. “She’s going to smite you if you do.”

“What does that—dude, what does that even _mean?_ ” Dean complained. “It can’t be worse than that Michael story.”

Castiel raised both his eyebrows in dubious warning.

“You’re _kidding_.”

Castiel lifted his coffee and took a deep, fortifying drink of it. “She, um… she was very taken with the whole idea, when we were kids. She spent an entire year in high school hand-embroidering a handkerchief for each and every boy she’d ever taken a fancy to. I didn’t realize what she was doing until she, um, brought me the stack. For quality check? I suppose. A whole _rainbow_ of initials.” Castiel grimaced. “There must have been thirty of them.”

Dean’s eyes went wide. “Wait. What? Holy _shit_. _Cas_ , did you have to give her the ‘if you’re into polygamy, don’t look for a soulmate’ talk?”

Castiel choked on his coffee. “Is this a talk one commonly has to give a younger sibling?” he demanded, lowering his mug, deadpan, “Because I’m not believing you gave it to Sam until I hear it from him.”

Dean shrugged, Gallic, both hands up, but even though he wasn’t smiling, there was just _something_ about the way his lips were pricking up at the corners… Castiel considered kicking him under the table and decided reluctantly that he actually was too old for that. “Dunno, but I feel like if they’re gonna teach mandatory crafts so that we can all make an Offering someday or whatever, that talk _and_ the ‘ _no_ you can’t prank someone into soulmate bonds’ talk should also be part of middle school curriculum. So, wait, what was she…”

“She was planning on literally going to each of them and Offering for them,” Castiel noted, just a bit grimly. “She wanted my help with deciding on the order of doing so.”

Dean winced. “Holy shit, man. What’d you tell her?”

Castiel gave Dean a dry look. “You have met me. What do you think I said?”

He realized he had walked facefirst into it when Dean’s eyes did the next best thing to _twinkling._ “Either some metaphor about bees and pollination and flowers she probably didn’t understand, or you just stood there staring at her like you were trying to burn a hole through her with your eyeballs,” he answered, just a little bit too quickly for Castiel’s liking.

But… yes, Dean did clearly know him. “The latter,” Castiel sighed. “Fortunately Anna was there, and she gave her ‘The Talk.’” Dean’s smirk widened, naughty as an eyebrow flicked upwards, and there was nothing of _little_ boys to it. “Not _that_ talk, you…” This time Castiel did kick Dean under the table. “ _You_ know—that your soulmate is someone you know, not just that you know _of?_ Someone you like, someone you enjoy, and that is the point of Intent.” He grimaced in remembrance. “Something about giving a pretty handkerchief to everyone with a pretty face being a waste of time, thread and handkerchiefs? I thought it was going quite well, actually, and that Anna had it well in hand…”

“Gabriel?” Dean guessed.

Castiel paused, and cocked his head, studying the lovely man who was sitting across the table from him. Dean was already grinning as he hugged his coffee mug to his broad chest—expression delighted with anticipation, like a small child’s. “It’s a little worrisome how well you know my family already,” he admitted. “Yes, Gabriel. _He_ told her she was being ‘fucking terrifying’ and she needed to ‘knock that shit off,’” Castiel said. “Unfortunately, I _completely agreed_ and she was already upset, and then, well…”

Castiel chewed on his lower lip, and looked at Dean through his lashes. Dean’s lips had already started to twitch. Well… Dean already _knew_ just what he was like, so…

“I might have said something about not giving potential soulmates an Offering they’d use to blow their noses,” he admitted—Dean choked, putting a hand over his mouth—then sighed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time! And then…” Castiel felt most of his face scrunch in distaste. “Gabriel amazingly made it _worse_.”

Dean _howled_ , slapping the table and his good thigh, and in the emptiness of the closed bakery, his deep voice was a wild, happy echo. Castiel hid the pleasure of his smile in the last few sips of his honey-sweetened coffee.

Castiel sometimes wished it didn’t feel so good to make Dean laugh.

But on days like today, sitting in Dangerously Delicious with its owner and sharing stale coffee well past closing time… Castiel didn’t regret it at all.

*_*_*_*

That had been nearly a year ago, now, and the world was very different. _Dean_ wasn’t any different—hopefully, probably—but the world was, and Castiel hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, now.

Castiel realized, though, that he had no right to feel wistful—and certainly no right to complain.

He had it better than most, when it came to these strange times that they were living in. Most of his communication with his clients even before any of this had started had been through the phone, through the internet, through the handfuls of carefully—or not-so-carefully—filed receipts. His firm was continuing its work through quarantine, and though his billable hours were markedly down, he had a steady savings account and a conservatively managed portfolio. He wasn’t worried about losing his job, and his life would go back to normal at the end of this—he had to believe there would be an end to this.

There were, of course, things that he missed. (People he missed.) However, Castiel was very aware of just how fortunate he was, and he truly was _grateful_.

“Are you honestly okay, Cassie?” Balthazar asked, his voice tinny over the phone. “I mean… we all know just what a graceful social butterfly you are, but this whole thing is really getting to people. Even _you_ need a hug now and again.”

Balthazar wasn’t being unkind, truly. (Well, no, Balthazar _was_ being unkind, he just knew that Castiel didn’t really care if he was.)

Castiel knew how he came across to others—he never knew how much eye contact was alright, he _never_ got movie references, and there were so many times human interaction just felt so far away and so _alien._

“No, thank you,” Castiel answered, dryly. “Gabriel is the one who hugs me the most.”

“He does it because it makes you uncomfortable.”

“Yes,” Castiel agreed. “ _Exactly_.”

Balthazar laughed. Castiel contemplated telling his oldest friend that it really hadn’t been a joke, but he imagined Balthazar already knew that. After all, Balthazar had known him since Castiel had been found sitting on his back stoop at ten years old, just looking for some _peace and quiet_ , _please, I only need a few minutes._

“So how much of a conniption is mummy dearest having about Gabriel’s nuptials?” He could almost hear Balthazar’s eyeroll.

Castiel grimaced. “I’m still not sure why she bothers. Gabe and Kali don’t seem that worried that their wedding is postponed. They’re _already_ soulbonded, and they just finalized the Union instead. Nothing is ever going to be more permanent than that. And they got their deposits back.”

“That _would_ be the part you fixate on, oh, Cassie, my sweet, sweet summer child.”

“I was born in September,” Castiel sighed, not for the first time, and Balthazar was still laughing when he hung up.

They had been roommates for awhile, in college, and they’d gotten along well enough, but as much as Castiel did enjoy Balthazar he was fairly certain he’d have tried to kill his old friend if they’d actually been confined _together_. Castiel was also _very_ sure he would have won that fight, he’d grown up with four siblings. By the time he’d moved out of the rambling, rambunctious Novak household, the quiet of his own mind had often seemed like a blessing more than a curse.

Altogether Castiel was quite content with his path in life, and quarantine didn’t change that. He was glad he could do his own small part in preventing the spread of the virus; he was grateful he could be well-fed and comfortable and financially secure during it. He was _happy_ he was not going stir-crazy, and that all of this had, as a whole, given him more time with the quiet of his mind, and his hobbies.

Speaking of which.

Castiel closed his Quickbooks and sighed, stretching—tipping his head backwards and rolling both his shoulders, reaching back to massage one, then the other, then putting his hands behind him to stretch his back. He was going to have to work on his posture if he was going to continue working on his laptop on his sofa, because Castiel _refused_ to do any sort of his actual work in his craft room.

He checked the little potted succulents lined up against his craft room’s window ledge, first, emptying out their little terracotta drainage plates and setting them back into the weak sunshine. One of them was starting to sprout a desultory flower, resilient even now. The work-related tension in his shoulders settled down as he sat cross-legged in his oversized, comfortable recliner and reached into the large woven basket beside it for his knitting.

He picked carefully through the mess of project bags. He still had to wind the merino bulky for that cabled hat that Balthazar wanted for his ski trip later this year—Castiel would make it in optimism and for luck, since he sincerely hoped Balthazar would be still able to go… though he wasn’t counting on it. He wasn’t in the mood for sweater knitting, it was too warm to have all that wool curled in his lap. But he was almost done with these DK-weight slipper-socks for Anna, so he’d finish them first.

He knew that other people were lonely through this—that they craved company, that they craved _people_. So sometimes Castiel did feel a little guilty about the fact that he truly didn’t mind this part of quarantine—less pressure to be outside, less pressure to be around others, more time to _make_.

But only sometimes.

Castiel sighed contentedly as he picked up the graceful curve of his long circular knitting needle, the two socks dangling from it in their vibrant variegated tubes. He tensioned the working end of the first ball of yarn around his right pinkie finger, picking up the slender metal needles and starting the knit three, purl one ribbing of the instep with meditative little flicks of his fingers. He’d already picked up the heel flap the other day—today, he’d get through the gusset decreases, then he’d go work on his other quarantine project.

( _No_ , he did not use a rocking chair, Dean. He found that the arms kept his elbows a little closer to his body than he liked to keep them while he was working, he couldn’t sit crosslegged in one, and besides, that meant he had to put his project bag on the floor. Things got tangled. He really didn’t see what part of any of that was funny.)

Castiel wasn’t the only one in his family who’d come to enjoy crafting and making purely for their own sake, but given that his wrists were bare, he certainly didn’t have the warm attachment associated with the maker’s arts as Gabriel and Anna did. He just… liked it. And he _liked_ giving things that he’d made to people he cared about, even if it didn’t have the same implications as Offering.

Tendonitis in his left wrist had made him leave crocheting behind in his twenties to pick up knitting, but even though it was altogether slower than crochet, he’d amassed quite a supply of colors, textures, and weights of yarn. Sometimes he just stood in his craft room and picked through his yarn stash to enjoy the colors, the difference between merino and rambouillet, without a project in mind. (Gabriel had sighed and commented that _only_ Castiel could have something called a stash and have it be so _boring._ Of course, Gabriel also wore the fingers off the gloves that Castiel made him every two or three years, so Castiel didn’t actually mind.)

In the process of steeking a sweater a few months ago, he’d reminded himself of how to use a sewing machine. It was all a little clumsy again, at first, the tension and bobbins and stitches that left him fumble-fingered in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. But he’d managed, and that brought him to his current project. Castiel sighed as he slip-slip-knit the last gusset decrease, and curled the soft wool socks around themselves and their needles, tucking the mass of it back into the project bag reluctantly and setting it all back into his knitting basket.

Then he glared at his little sewing machine, and the small pile of cut fabric next to it.

Castiel, of all people, understood the necessity. In this day and age most people didn’t retain this skill, even if they had learned it at one point—sewing had never been a popular art for Offering. He was sure that not even _Armageddon_ would make Michael sit down at a sewing machine ever again, Gabriel claimed he was as like to stitch through his finger as cloth (and Castiel believed him) and Hael had always done hand-embroidery and needlepoint far more than she’d ever worked with a machine. Anna’s bridal shop certainly wasn’t making dresses right now, so she and her shop assistants were making masks as well. However, even with their commercial machines their hands were raw—Castiel had seen them at the last Zoom meeting his family had subjected him to.

This was so _little_ , but it was something he could do—even if he much preferred almost any other form of crafting.

It still had to be said: Castiel did not enjoy sewing masks.

He was glad he _could,_ and his neighbors had been grateful when he’d them offered his first efforts from the safe distance of their porches—the seams a little crooked, at that point, but still useful. He liked the _utility_ of making them. He liked feeling helpful, like there was something small he could give back when society was so insane. But as he stood and measured and cut and measured, ironed creases and stitched in elastic and interfacing ad nauseum, put in nose bridges made of straightened paper clips, Castiel had to admit he maybe understood a little better about how _other_ people felt about doing crafts.

This wasn’t fun. This wasn’t relaxing. This wasn’t something he’d put on his head against the sharp Boston nip of winter or wrap around his neck to keep off the bite of wind. This was not a creation that he’d wrap around his family, his friends and siblings and nieces and nephews, and think of how he’d made every stitch just for them. This certainly wasn’t something he was doing with a flutter in his stomach as he thought of Intent and of Offering and Response—not that Castiel had ever done any of that, but he imagined he’d be nervous.

Doing what he could to help ward off the virus felt like _work_ , and Castiel gritted his teeth through the hum of his sewing machine as he worked his way through the last few fabric scraps he had already cut.

But he knew what he’d be doing later anyway. He’d have himself a croissant as a reward—a buttery, flaky indulgence of a snack with just a smear of peanut butter and grape jelly—and then he’d be going back to the box of fabric scraps and leftovers that he’d purchased in bulk and pulling out another handful to measure.

And then—he sighed—he’d make yet more masks.

He _was_ nearly out of croissants, though. He didn’t want to be indulgent, not at a time like this, but Castiel _liked_ his routine. More, he liked _supporting_ what small businesses he still could—so many of them were suffering through this.

Besides, Castiel didn’t eat a croissant every day—just two or three days a week, late in the afternoon, and he’d had this habit since long before quarantine started. He’d just always done it at the bakery before, Sam playfully grumbling about how his croissants didn’t need _peanut_ _butter_ , while Dean cheerfully retorted, “Shut your cakehole, Sammy,” and dug out different kinds of jelly for Castiel to try.

Not today, he shouldn’t go to the bakery today, but maybe next Monday he could stop by…

Castiel sighed, and rested the iron on its base on the ironing board, thumbing it off. His wrists were throbbing again, and he rubbed the inside of one ruefully with a thumb. He really wished that he could attribute it to too much time at the keyboard or with his needles. In his case, he couldn’t—it was psychosomatic, or at least he assumed that was what it was called.

Some people’s hearts hurt—Castiel’s hands did.

Castiel had mostly given up on romance a long time ago—it was just too _difficult_ , trying to make people understand, and it wasn’t as if he minded being alone. Hael’s constant string of boyfriends made it clear that Castiel’s contentment with his solitude was by far not the worst option out there.

But then there was Dean.

Dean was the sort of person that made Castiel momentarily regret his awkwardness, the fact that he tripped on his tongue when talking half the time and said absolutely the wrong thing the other half. It had been a long time since he had truly cared about that—Castiel had accepted himself long ago. He had realized that water cooler small talk was not for him, and that those who accepted his bluntness in turn were the best friends that a person could have.

He didn’t have many, but he treasured them, and Dean Winchester was among them. And if he’d never be more than that… well.

Initially, Castiel had wondered if Dean’s friendliness was just good customer service—because it certainly wasn’t as if Castiel had made a good impression the first time. He’d dragged himself into the brand-new little bakery off Massachusetts Avenue just seconds before closing, bedraggled by an evening autumn storm even just from his run from the car to the door. And what sort of name was Dangerously Delicious for a bakery, anyway?

(Dean, he found out later, referred to it as Double D. Because of course he did.)

Dean, though, this tall, stunning man with shoulders made for the span of another’s touch and a raspy-looking, gold-tinged brush of scruff on his jaw, just laughed at Castiel’s complete inability to act like a normal human being. He strode out from behind the counter with a dishtowel in hand for Castiel’s face and hair. He pulled down one of the chairs already stacked on top of the tables for the night, and said, “Hey, take a load off, man.”

No sooner did Dean wrap up the sourdough boule Castiel had come in for than he strode to the door to flip the sign and turn off the lights in the window. Castiel was ashamed to remember how he'd had to stop himself from turning to watch Dean walk, how difficult it had been to keep his eyes off the lazy, deliberate width of his stride.

But when Castiel tried to stand and go, hurriedly sweeping the wet folds of his trench coat and his embarrassment for inconveniencing them around him, Dean nudged him back into the chair with a hand on his shoulder, putting a cup of coffee in some sort of colorful novelty mug in front of him. (Castiel remembered: it read _“Akron, Ohio.”_ )

“It’s still pouring out there,” he pointed out. “S’okay, me and Sammy are still here, we got some stuff to do anyway. Just wait it out. Hey, what’s your name? I’m Dean.”

An hour and two cups of coffee later Castiel found himself, a little bewildered, helping clean up the front of house.

Dean dubbed him ‘Cas’ and then pressed a mop into his hand. Dean and Sam bickered cheerfully behind the counter and every so often called out for his opinion like they’d known him for years, not hours.

Just before Castiel left, still somewhat confused about what exactly had _happened here,_ Sam insistently pressed a baguette and a bag of croissants into his arms with a glare at Dean so vivid it should have given his brother a hotfoot.

(It was his first time trying their croissants. So it could be said that Sam was to blame.)

All Dean said, smirking, was “What can I say? I’m irresistible, Sammy.”

He… was, a little. Castiel was never going to let him know that, though. Dean was lethal enough already as it was.

Dean later told Castiel, “He’s my little brother, it’s my _job_ to refine Sammy’s bitchface.”

Castiel glanced up at him, narrowed his eyes just slightly, and pointed out, “I have _three_ elder siblings, so I really hope that’s not true.”

Dean smirked. “Cas, buddy, you could give Sammy lessons in bitchface. So I _know_ it’s true.”

Castiel suspected he looked not even remotely threatening when he glared back over the top of his mug of end-of-day decaf coffee, sweetened with just a little honey.

Whatever the expression on his face, Dean laughed and _laughed_ at it. His laughter was loud and raucous, head tossed back and the line of his throat golden and ridged and utterly pure. That was when Castiel discovered that feeling one’s heart skip a beat was not just a metaphor.

Castiel stopped massaging his wrists with a grimace, and just clenched his fists, unclenched them. He didn’t know why he bothered to keep doing that. It wasn’t like it _helped_.

Dean was tall and broad-shouldered and handsome and he undoubtedly knew it, playing it up, outrageous. All of his specialty dessert pastries were named after 80s rock songs (all of Sam’s fancy lunch rush sandwiches were named after archaic laws, which still made Castiel chuckle and Dean declare them both nerds.) Dean limped a little when he was tired, the knee injury that had led to him leaving active service, but most of the time he swaggered in heavy laced boots, unlike Sam’s sensible clogs. He used so many references that it left Castiel’s head spinning half the time, and seemed to enjoy nothing more than explaining them in response to Castiel’s puzzled expression—not that his explanations made any more sense than the original reference.

(He laughed when Castiel, bluntly, told him that, too.)

Dean was also charming and flirty with all the female customers that Castiel had ever seen, charming every girl from a grandmother there to pick up her grandson’s birthday cake to a little girl just old enough to pick her own cupcake for the first time. (Castiel’s heart might have melted a little when Dean ran to the back and came out with a little hastily formed marzipan unicorn that he’d proudly set on top of the cupcake.)

So. There was that.

Castiel couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such an… infatuation. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had made him feel so _foolish_ for them. It was a harmless thing, he realized it, and he was conscious of it every time he walked into Dean’s and Sam’s bakery. It would pass, he thought in the beginning. His feelings would pass, and he would remain friends with Dean. He would just _enjoy_ the fact that Dean grinned at his awkwardness, laughed through his stumbling, rather than feeling something ache at his breastbone when the other man smiled.

It would pass. And that would, Castiel thought, eminently practical, be that.

That had been a year and a half ago.

The hope that _this would pass_ was getting a little thin and ragged and desperate.

Castiel sighed exasperatedly down at his aching wrists and went to go ice them and eat a croissant. He scowled at it even as he tore off flaky pieces and smeared them with more peanut butter and jelly than he normally indulged in. It was not the croissant’s fault that Castiel was annoyed with himself—and it was delicious; he stored them in the freezer and then reheated them in the toaster oven. It was not even its fault that croissants made him think of the bakery where he’d gotten them, and by extension, its owner.

It was just so frustrating, he thought as he washed crumbs and peanut butter from his hands and returned to his craft room. Castiel _was_ content being alone, and he’d never so much as managed to convince himself for a moment that anything with Dean was possible.

So why couldn’t he just _let this go?_

Castiel folded himself to his knees and started picking grouchily through the box of myriad scraps—some of them were clearly too shallow or narrow to be made into masks, but he could use them for interfacing. His mood improved, though, as he kept sorting through the bits of cloth—he didn’t collect fabrics the way Anna did, but Castiel knew an entire box full of novelty prints when he saw one. He shook his head and chuckled. No wonder it had been so cheap. At least when he brought this next batch of masks to the hospital, someone would get a smile out of them.

Most of them were fairly standard—a large number of children’s prints, sports teams that Castiel didn’t know, some cats and dogs. Some of them were truly ugly—he had nothing against the American flag, but the background it had been set on looked more like the cloth had gotten dropped into drainage water than anything “antique.”

(Castiel would admit that he _did_ put aside a half-yard of a bright yellow fabric with cartoon bees trailing swirls of dotted lines behind them, especially when he realized that the dotted lines were _accurate_ to worker dance patterns. He wasn’t sure what he’d make with it— _not_ a mask—but he was keeping that for himself. Perhaps a project bag.)

He carefully set aside another that had nurse slogans on it—he’d made Jess a mask at the beginning of quarantine, since she got issued disposable masks by her hospital ward but they tended to fog her protective eyewear. The metal piece he sewed into the nose bridge meant she could wear it over and keep that from happening. Still, that had been a few weeks ago, and she could probably use another. There was another scrap with a set of license plates on it, which _did_ make him think of Dean’s absurd love for his car, but he ultimately found a nice library motif that he rather liked.

Castiel held it up, running a thumb along the unfinished edges. He hadn’t made a mask for Sam, had he? That was an odd oversight on his part, though, well… Castiel thought, just a little remorsefully, he’d probably been trying to avoid the thought of Dean again.

Castiel sat back on his heels, though, when he pulled out a sky blue piece of cloth, about the length of his forearm, from almost the bottom of the box. Castiel studied it, and, surprising himself, he laughed.

The blue background was unremarkable, covered with a motif of puffy clouds. But rather than angels or birds, there were slices of _cherry pie_ floating on it, each one absurdly decorated with a tiny pair of little white wings. There wasn’t much of it, all he _would_ be able to make of it was yet another of those damnable cloth masks, but…

Dean, he thought with a chuckle, would _love_ this.

Before he could second guess himself, Castiel had the cloth laid out on his measuring board.

*_*_*_*

“Heya, Cas,” Dean was smiling at him, and over the edge of Dean’s ill-fitting plain disposable mask, Castiel could see the soft scrunch of pleasure in the corners of his eyes. “Got your order, right there. How’ve you been, buddy? S’weird not seeing you all the time.”

It… was. Before quarantine, he’d stopped by Dangerously Delicious most days after work—sometimes hanging out after closing, especially when it was Dean’s turn, since seeing the shop completely empty and dark seemed to bother Dean. But times were strange, now, he supposed. He wondered if Sam was busier, if fewer people were indulging in Dean’s sweeter treats than Sam’s practical breads—they normally took turns, but these days Dean was always the one at the counter when Castiel came to pick up his order.

Without the rest of his face visible, even in the fluorescent shop light Dean’s irises were luminous, the mischievous tip of his eyebrows a whole conversation. With long experience, Castiel tried not to stare. If he succeeded, he wasn’t sure.

“I’m alright,” Castiel admitted, finally breaking his own gaze to reach over and pick up the full, neatly folded bakery bag from the takeaway table. “I almost feel a little guilty about being more alright than many.”

His terrible crush on the beautiful man with the perfect pink lips—covered, now—and the tiny golden freckles that could only be seen from closer than Castiel should be standing was both outrageous and childish. He was well aware of that, of course, but it didn’t always make it any easier to bear.

Still, _being_ here, feeling Dean’s smile… it helped, strangely, the way staying away in quarantine hadn’t. It _settled_ him. It reminded him that he and Dean _were_ friends, and that they did get along.

It reminded Castiel that he had a reason to keep his feelings neatly tamped down, because friendship was rare for him, and far more valuable than the fact that Dean Winchester was the first person in a very long time that had made Castiel’s wrists ache.

Dean chuckled. “I dunno about ‘alright,’ dude,” he teased. “You’re wearing a hoodie and jeans. I’m not sayin’ it’s not a good look for you, but I was sort of starting to think you _slept_ in a suit and tie.”

Castiel knew, of course, what Dean meant. He still let his head tip just a little to the side and squinted his eyes just slightly. “That sounds like it would be _very_ uncomfortable,” he pronounced, seriously.

Dean snorted through his nose with enough exaggeration that it momentarily puffed out the mask he was wearing. “It’d explain your ties.”

“There is _nothing_ wrong with my ties.”

“Cas, you came in one day with your tie _backwards._ ”

Castiel grunted. That had just been the _once_. Dean was never going to let him live that down.

Dean leaned an elbow on the countertop and waggled his eyebrows in clear exaggeration. “So, you seen _Rise of Skywalker_ _yet_? Or _any_ new movies?”

Castiel considered. He’d had the TV running in the background when he’d been making masks the other day, and that theme music was unmistakable. “I think I saw the Star Wars movie with a cute child and that Jar Jar Binks character. I could see why everyone makes fun of him. That’s one of the new ones, right?”

Dean dropped his face into his palm hard enough that it made a loud ‘smack’ sound. “Cas. _Cas,_ man. You are _killing me_ here.”

“Stop touching your face.” Castiel lifted his chin and harrumphed. “We’re not _all_ spending quarantine watching movies, Dean.”

With the mask on, he couldn’t see the way Dean’s lips would tighten and curve as his grin widened, but he knew it was there. “Uh-huh,” Dean drawled, and narrowed his eyes, just slightly. “So… what you’re saying is, you’ve finished streaming all of Orange Is the New Black, then?”

Castiel glared at him. “No,” he answered, haughtily.

He couldn’t have said how he knew Dean was smirking, only that he definitely _was._ “Whatever you say, buddy.”

Castiel hadn’t! He was saving the last season. Castiel knew Dean couldn’t see it, which was why he narrowed his eyes further and, very childishly, stuck his tongue out—just a little.

Dean’s eyes crinkled, and something about the very knowing _look_ Dean was shooting him, the way he leaned a little bit further against the countertop, made Castiel wonder if his ears were turning hot.

He _knew_ they were when Dean murmured, “I _know_ what you’re doing behind that mask, there, Cas. Don’t write checks you can’t cash.”

Cas swallowed. He heard the nervous gulp of it, and wondered if it were possible to disappear into his hoodie the way he could into his trench coat. He was sincerely about to try when he heard the little baggie he’d stuffed into the pocket of his hoodie crinkle.

“Dean, I, ah, here,” he held up the small ziplock bag of cloth masks in demonstration, and put it on the table where Dean had left his little paper satchel of croissants. Now that he’d put it down, though, he almost wanted to snatch it back. The mask would look bright and cheesy and _ridiculous_ next to Dean’s broad shoulders, the light line of golden-brown scruff that Cas was sure he had on his cheeks—he always did. Castiel mourned a little that current mask culture meant that he hadn’t seen that brush of stubble or the line of his jaw in weeks, but he realized how inappropriate that was. “I… well. It’s a little something. I thought it might… help?”

Dean looked at the little ziplock bag from his position behind the counter, and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he studied the cheerful, colorful bits of cloth in it. “Cas, what is that?”

It was strange, wasn’t it, that he’d done this? Yes, it was probably strange.

“I, ah, it’s…” and Castiel hunched his shoulders inwards underneath his hoodie and regretted that he’d said or done anything at all. “They’re just masks. I thought you might…” and what little courage remained failed him. This was stupid. This was _silly._ What had he been thinking? “Um, there is one in there for Sam as well, and for Jess, I—” and he was backing out of Dangerously Delicious even as he stumbled over his own words.

“Cas, hey,” Dean said, softly, and then, louder. “ _Cas_.”

Castiel was already out the door, the guitar riff chime of the door echoing behind him.

*_*_*_*

It took him two weeks before he took a deep breath and returned to the bakery.

Castiel realized that he was being _insane_. He made things for his friends and his family all the time. Besides, no-one knew but him that he’d chosen that fabric just for Dean—and even though he had, he’d chosen the fabrics for Sam and for Jess, too. He _himself_ emphasized all the time that most handicrafts didn’t have the same implications as they’d used to, and for all anyone knew he'd made dozens of masks just to give out. (He truly had. He never wanted to make a mask again.) For all they knew Castiel hadn’t even made them at all, and he was just distributing them!

 _Castiel_ was the only one making a big deal of it, and looking back, he felt, well, foolish.

He was still grateful when it was Sam who picked up the phone to take his order, though. And he felt his nerves settle, felt the curve of his smile tipping his lips when Sam exclaimed, “Cas, the masks are so _great_ , man. Thank you! Jess didn’t want me to tell you, but she really did need a backup.”

“She should have said. I’ll make her more, then,” Castiel promised, and he heard the warmth in his voice. He _did_ like Jess. Making something for her would be a pleasure. “Is she doing alright?”

“Yeah. She says the kiddos don’t have it all as bad—thank God.” Sam’s voice turned brisk, businesslike. “Want your usual?”

“Yes, please,” he agreed, relieved. Everything seemed very normal.

“D’you need ‘em today, or you coming in tomorrow?” Sam asked. “If you come tomorrow maybe ‘bout ten, I’ll have ‘em really fresh for you. On the house.”

Castiel blinked. Goodness knew Castiel was no expert on freshness, and he’d _never_ had any complaints about Dangerously Delicious’s baked goods—but, well, why not? He could wait an evening. “I can’t let you do that,” he told Sam, firmly. He was an accountant; he knew how things were for small businesses these days, even if it was just a few croissants. “Please charge my card on file. But I can come tomorrow.”

“Great!” Sam agreed, cheerfully. “See you tomorrow. And, y’know… thanks again, buddy.”

Castiel slept better than he had in a few weeks. He _was_ smiling a little when he pushed open the glass door to Dangerously Delicious the next morning, just before ten, and heard the familiar guitar riff. From what Sam had said, he’d expected it to be the younger brother manning the counter today, but it wasn’t. Dean was leaning on the display case and he lifted his hand in a wave, “Heya, Cas,” he greeted, smiling. He was wearing Castiel’s mask, pinched high on the bridge of his nose. It was absurd, and it was just as _perfect_ as Castiel had imagined.

The silly little jump in Castiel’s spirits _was_ silly, he realized that, but Dean’s smiles always did make him feel good, even knowing how ubiquitous they were.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel started, but then he found himself frowning.

There was something…

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Dean wasn’t wearing one of his ubiquitous flannel overshirts today.

All he was wearing was a plain white t-shirt over jeans. His sleeves stopped just short of his elbows.

His arms were just as lovely as Castiel had always thought they would be, real and firm, biceps traced with muscle. He was wearing a plain red apron over his jeans and t-shirt, incongruously decorated with a pink cupcake with arms and legs proclaiming _‘Nuuuude!!!’_ The cupcake was waving a cupcake sleeve around itself.

Dean was golden skin and tawny hair and bright eyes even over the mask, something to _lick_ , not just admire. He was wearing the mask that _Castiel_ had made him, the slices of cherry pie on their pastel blue background just as cheerful as he’d thought when he’d seen the swatch of fabric, and ordinarily that alone would have made a bubble of pride rise in Castiel’s chest. He did very much enjoy it when people he cared about wore the things he made.

Except. Except.

Dean’s arms were _bare_ —for the first time since Castiel had known him, they were bare to above the elbow. His biceps were delicately rippled, and he had small scars scattered in streaks and fingerprints over both forearms. ( _“That’s the thing ‘bout telling people you’re a baker, Cas, everyone thinks if they see scars on your arms it’s from work, you know?”_ ) Not even the apron could conceal the breadth of his chest, and the plain white shirt seemed like such a thin film over his vitality. He was so _beautiful_.

Except.

Dean’s left forearm rested on the counter. A thick, opaque band of scarlet, the width of a thumb, ringed his wrist.

He'd knocked a mug off a tabletop here exactly once before ( _Champaign, IL, Where Life Is Bubbly!_ ) The sight of that lovely red stripe felt like the fall before the ceramic had shattered, knocking Castiel out of his own silliness. He swallowed, feeling vaguely sick.

Dean didn’t go wrists out. But maybe it hadn’t just been because of his battle scars. Castiel already knew that Dean held close and dear some things that no-one else suspected he could.

For some people, the soulbond was something to show off. For others, it was a private pleasure. He almost never saw Anna’s and Michael’s wrists, and he was _family_.

All this time, he’d been mooning over a man with a _soulmate_. Who’d already _Accepted_ his soulmate, if that band was any indication. It didn’t mean anything that his other wrist was still bare—most people considered it romantic to wait for a special occasion to present the Response and therefore formalize the Union.

Why should that matter? It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t matter at all. He’d always understood what was and wasn’t possible. Truly, there was something wrong with Castiel, that he had just felt his gut drop.

“Heya, Cas,” and Castiel hated that he couldn’t see Dean’s smile except as that soft, warm curve in the corners of his eyes. “You ran out of here pretty fast last time, didn’t even let me thank you.” He gestured at the mask on his face, and the crinkles deepened to a fondness that pooled hot in Castiel’s chest, almost unbearable. “This is _awesome_.”

Maybe it was better he couldn’t see the rest of Dean’s smile. Castiel’s imagination, it seemed, didn’t require any additional fodder to get itself into trouble in the first place.

“I’m glad you like it. You’re very welcome.” Castiel turned away before the heaviness in his chest drowned him, and reached for his little paper bakery bag on the takeaway table near the door, thumbing across the messy marker scrawl of ‘CAS.’ But it was heavier than he expected, when he lifted it. Castiel frowned, and hefted it again.

“Oh. Yeah, there’s something a little extra in there today,” Dean told his back.

Castiel felt his shoulders bunch. He didn’t dare turn around. “Oh. You didn’t have to—”

“Yeah, Cas, I did,” and Dean’s voice was firm enough to make Castiel’s face go hot with embarrassment.

Yes. He would have it, whatever it was, and he’d savor it, because he _couldn’t_ come back here again—or at least not for a while, not until he forgave himself for being an _idiot_. His heart and both wrists cramped with pain when he left—and oh, yes, that surprised him.

Castiel hadn’t realized he’d ever even _hoped_.

*_*_*_*

The small box underneath his regular order of croissants contained a single tiny cupcake, small enough that it would fit in the center of his palm—not one of the larger ones that Gabriel loved from the display case at Dangerously Delicious, the ones so big that Castiel felt a little nauseated at the idea of finishing the whole thing.

The rich scent that wafted up from the little thing, though… that was honey. A honey cupcake. Just a small daub of creamy frosting sat in the center, just barely enough to cover the top of the cupcake’s cake layer rather than piled high in an ice cream swirl. There was a tiny little cookie poking out of the top of it, no larger than Castiel’s thumb, striped brightly in yellow and black. A bee.

Castiel’s cheeks burned. He had no doubt whatsoever it’d been made just for him. That _Dean,_ the pastry chef, had made it, not Sam, who made the croissants and focaccia and sourdough. In light of that, humiliation pinched behind his sternum.

Dean, no doubt, knew that that silly mask had been made just for him, too. Why else would he… But that was traditional, too, wasn’t it? Castiel had his own box of treasures from siblings and friends. Handmade for handmade was still the custom, even if it wasn’t anything like soulmate Offerings.

It couldn’t, wouldn’t be, of course, because Dean already _had a soulmate._

Castiel would _not_ torture himself thinking about who or what or why. He left the cupcake on the countertop in its box, and bypassed his computer, bypassed his sewing machine with its accusing pile of fabrics. He crossed his legs in front of him in his recliner and knit until there was no more daylight peeking in over his succulents in their little terracotta pots, until he knew he was going to have to turn the lights on soon if he wanted to graft closed the toes of Anna’s new socks. His hands cramped a little from how hard he had been tensioning, and breathing still hurt a little, but Castiel’s face and his eyes were dry and he thought he felt a little bit better.

Was this why Dean had gone without a flannel today, knowing that Castiel would come in and see his mark? Had he finally _seen_ Castiel’s infatuation and kindly, definitively decided to nip it in the bud? Castiel hoped not, hoped for the sake of their friendship that that had been just coincidence, because there was Castiel’s own awkwardness and then there was… _that._ But one way or another, Castiel knowing about Dean’s soulmate was for the best.

He'd be alright. Castiel knew he would.

It wasn’t that he’d thought anything could ever happen. He hadn’t! He and Dean were friends, and they were nothing more.

Castiel _valued_ that friendship! He _liked_ being able to talk with him, and make him laugh—that Dean seemed to actually _get_ what he meant so much of the time. He didn’t mind not understanding Dean’s jokes. He _loved_ that Dean worked so hard at making him laugh, too. If he’d been too shy to take Dean up on his offers of going out to a drink or a movie or a bar with him and Sam rather than meeting them in their bakery, afraid he’d upset the balance of their outing by saying something _terrible_ , that wasn’t Dean’s fault. Dean had always offered.

It was just…

It was time, Castiel thought as his hands moved mindlessly, yarn tugging gently on his pinkie and needles tick-swishing softly through the last few stitches, to be honest with himself.

He hadn’t thought about soul bands or forever or _any_ of that—some things were just beyond the pale. The lustful twinges he’d gotten so often, well, Castiel felt _guilty_ about them, but he didn’t confuse them with anything remotely resembling reality.

But… the little things. The little flashes of fantasy. Imagining sitting next to Dean on a sofa and reaching out to put a hand on his bad knee just because he could, because he’d seen Dean rubbing it at times and he knew that made it better. Thinking about actually seeing some of those movies speckled with Dean’s colorful commentary. Wondering if Dean’s table manners would truly be as appalling as Sam complained they were, if they ever went out to a meal together—wanting to see if he made faces as rapturous over burgers as he did over pie. A nudge with a lean, long hip and a touch on his waist that wasn’t just friendly—Dean was already so handsy as it was. A hug.

 _Kisses_. On the cheek, on the neck. On freckles. On those gorgeous lips.

A fantasy being innocent didn’t make it any more possible—but it did, Castiel realized a little too late, make it all the more insidious.

Castiel didn’t let himself dream often, but he’d _allowed_ himself these. He’d supposed they were small and pretty and harmless little illusions, even knowing he couldn’t have them.

He had never admitted to himself how much he’d let himself _want_ those things.

Castiel sighed, and put away Anna’s socks, careful to fold the cord through them so they didn’t fall off the slippery metal needles. He wasn’t in the mood for Kitchener stitch. Another time. He was almost finished.

He folded his fingers together in his lap and closed his eyes in his unlit crafts room, quiet and safe. His wrists hurt, but he had dreams to pack away, so he did just that—like the tug of taking knitting apart, unraveling the stitches slowly and carefully until it was just colors and softness blurring in his lap.

He sat in the dark and let himself ache, sweetly, the way he did whenever Dean grinned at him, and remembered with a pang just how lovely the red band of the soulbond looked on Dean’s wrist.

He _wanted_ that for Dean, Castiel realized. Not everyone got it, not anymore, and he was _happy_ that Dean could have that—brash, beautiful, absurd, warm-hearted Dean, who teased Castiel for not liking his pastries and cackled so hard he snorted sometimes. He was glad that Dean had someone who cared about him enough to make something just for him, caring and Intent in mind—someone who was brave enough to Offer. Someone that _Dean_ cared for enough in return that the magic drew his Acceptance on his skin.

He truly was happy for him.

_Ah._

“It wasn’t a crush at all, was it,” Castiel told the shadows, and quietly forgave himself for loving someone who would never, _could_ never, love him back.

And let him go.

Then he wiped his eyes, stood up and turned on the lights.

He’d be alright. Castiel knew he would. He just… he’d need a little time.

He didn’t know what to _do_ with the cupcake—what he was supposed to do about it. Eat it and not be wasteful, he supposed, though right now the thought of sweetness and honey made him grimace. But Castiel ultimately prided himself on being a practical soul, and if he wasn’t going to eat it now he should put it away, not leave it in an open box on his kitchen countertop.

Castiel’s imprudent feelings aside, Dean had made it for him, and Castiel knew to value things like that.

He stood on a stepstool for a small Tupperware and carefully extracted the cupcake from its little cardboard nest. A small piece of paper was taped to the inside of the box, but Castiel didn’t notice it for more than an instant—his wrists suddenly _stung_ like they’d been wrapped in nettles.

Castiel hissed, and hastily put the cupcake down onto the Tupperware lid, shaking out both hands. What in the world…? Even when his wrists were misbehaving at their worst it didn’t feel like that. He made a face and rubbed at them, but that didn’t seem to be making it better—in fact, now they itched and _burned,_ and he certainly hadn’t touched anything that could have caused that kind of reaction—how could he have, he hadn’t gone anywhere other than to the bakery!

He was reaching into the freezer for yet another ice pack, grimacing, when he saw the first blush of red rise on his skin like a ribbon floating to the surface of water. The unmistakable bands streaked inwards to form a complete ring. Castiel stood in front of his freezer with the door ajar and his mouth open, an ice pack in one hand and the cold air wafting into his face as impossibility bloomed scarlet in a thick stripe around both his wrists.

The ice pack slipped from Castiel’s nerveless fingers and he didn’t pick it up. He thought he closed the freezer door—he must have, because his face was waxing and waning hot and cold, the world spun around him once ( _oh, this must be what vertigo feels like_ ) and he couldn’t look away from the clean, bright red stripe on the skin of each of his forearms.

He fumbled for the countertop to keep himself upright and his flailing knocked the tiny cardboard box to the floor. Then almost knocked _himself_ down bending to retrieve it, and ended up sitting on the kitchen floor, knees awkwardly splayed, his back wedged into a corner.

There was a phone number inside—just numbers, and Castiel’s hands were shaking so hard it took three tries to punch them into his phone, his fingers skidding wet with ice and his eyes unable to tear themselves away from the red on his own skin.

“Dean?” he said into the phone at the first click of acceptance, breathless and shaky, and he didn’t recognize the high tremor of his own voice. “Dean, I…”

“Cas?” Dean interrupted—well, Castiel didn’t know what he’d been about to say anyway. “That you? Breathe, buddy. You’re okay. I promise you’re okay. Breathe.”

“I… yes. Yes, it’s me, I…” He swallowed. Gulped. Oh, this was worse than he normally was, even. He was not prone to anxiety, he was not prone to _panic,_ but this felt like both, or neither, or perhaps it was just a white, sharp sense of _disbelief_ giving his kitchen a lens flare. “Dean? Hello.”

What? Castiel thought his voice sounded a little more normal, which was a victory, but what words he’d actually produced were just _stupid_. He had to stop saying Dean’s name. Castiel leaned his head back against a cabinet and pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. What did he _say,_ then? Shock and euphoria and nervousness and _disbelief_ trilled along his nerves. Was it like this for everyone? Was it supposed to be like this?

Castiel wasn’t ignorant—he knew _what_ this was, he knew precisely what the color on his wrists meant, but that didn’t mean he _understood_.

“Hey,” Dean said, softly, and then it was quiet, just the sound of both of them breathing. “I uh… so, um. The cupcake.”

Words clotted in Castiel’s chest and he clutched the phone hard enough that it almost slipped from his wet fingers. Of course Dean would know, if this were reality. If this were reality, the moment the red bands had formed around Castiel’s wrists, the circle would have closed on Dean’s right— _Offering, Acceptance, Response, Union._ But this couldn’t be real. “Y-yes. Yes.”

“The cake’s not too sweet, I know you’re not, uh, you don’t… sweets aren’t really your, but, um, you like honey in your coffee, you weirdo, so… yeah.” There was the sound of shifting, and Castiel thought he heard the scrape of denim, a low, shaky sigh. Then, very quietly, “ _Shit._ ”

Castiel’s awkwardness flooded his throat, knotted there, but when he opened his eyes, the scarlet across his inner wrists lit through his vision, and he had to close his eyes again. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he could, _should_ say. What did anyone say when they looked at their wrists and saw those crimson bands around them for the first time?

What did _anyone_ do when they heard their soulmate _curse_ at the idea of being bonded to them?

“Cas?”

“Y-yes, Dean?” he answered, because he couldn’t not. What could he even _say?_ ‘ _I’m sorry?_ ’ _‘I didn’t mean to?’_

“First thing we do when the plague is over is we’re gonna sit down and marathon the last three Star Wars movies,” Dean finally said, firmly. “Just you an’ me. I’m kicking out the lovebirds. I’m gonna make burgers and there’s gonna be apple pie for dessert, and you’re gonna try some with ice cream. You can bring the beer. You don’t get to talk smack about Reylo. You down with that?”

Castiel blinked, surprised. Dean wanted to…?

“Oh, I… yes?” Castiel whispered. He was shaking, he realized. “That sounds… nice.”

‘Nice.’ What a completely insipid word.

He also had no idea who Reylo was, but it didn’t seem like the time to ask. Carefully, Castiel began to peel himself off the floor.

“’Cause I gotta tell you, I can’t be soulbonded to someone who hasn’t seen ‘em all, I just _can’t._ ” But the hint of laughter trembling in the very back of Dean’s voice, the smile that somehow Castiel could _hear,_ made that a promise, not a threat. “And by ‘all’ I mean I’ll let you pretend Episodes 1, 2 and 3 don’t exist.”

“Uh… Okay.” Where were all his _words_? Oh Lord in Heaven, Dean had really said ‘soulbonded.’ The red stripes on Castiel’s wrists weren’t just his imagination, not a terrible, beautiful fever dream. Castiel stumbled across his apartment and collapsed into his recliner with an ‘oof.’

He dug through uncertainty for his voice. He needed to _know._ “Dean, are you… how is this…” except he knew the answer, didn’t he? _Intent_ , and _Offering. Acceptance_. He curled his legs underneath him, the pressure of sitting on them familiar and settling enough that he got most of the words out. “H-how are you alright with this? With…” _with me?_

Soulbonds were permanent. The red lines on skin were a sign of bliss and comfort and happiness. They could not be replaced or removed. They never faded unless a partner passed away.

But Castiel had also never heard of anyone who’d gotten their bands _accidentally_ before.

He’d been thinking, as he stood at his sewing machine, of the way Dean would laugh and the soft crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes would deepen when he saw the silly mask, with its little winged cherry pie slices. He’d chuckled as he imagined Dean’s eyes shining over the nose bridge, the waggle of Dean’s eyebrows as he warbled that cherry pie song to himself.

 _Intent._ Intent mattered.

“Oh, man. Cas, you don’t even know,” and when Castiel’s voice stuck again—he _didn’t_ know, he truly didn’t, he needed Dean to _tell him_ —"I am so fucking _thrilled_.” Dean laughed, softly. “I mean, yeah, it’s a surprise, but… y’know? God. It’s… good. It’s gonna be so good, Cas.”

Dean couldn’t possibly understand how those words made him feel, how hope could be so _awful_ in a moment like this. _Oh._ Could he? “But… I always thought…” Castiel gulped, and breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. “I knew I…” ‘harbored a hopeless infatuation’ sounded _terrible,_ but that didn’t make it any less true. “I knew I, um, enjoyed your company very much” _and have guiltily fantasized about kissing your neck_ “but… I always thought it had to work both ways…?”

“What? Oh, geez, _Cas._ Are you kidding me? I’ve been trying to get up the balls to ask you out for _months_.” Dean made a noise that was somewhere between a complaint and a chuckle when Castiel produced a strangled sound of shock. “You fucking _idiot._ I’ve been gone on you I think since the first time you strutted into the store!”

Castiel didn’t know why his _idiot_ mind fixated on one word, but it did. “I don’t _strut_!” he squawked.

“Oh, you did that day, you cocky sonofabitch,” Dean snickered. “It was raining, and you came rushing in wearing that huge coat of yours, going so fast you just slammed through the door, and your hair was all fucked up. And you just straightened yourself up like the damned Prince of Egypt in a trench coat or something, just _looked_ at me down your nose, and the lightning lit up the sky all outside—”

“…and the lights went out,” Castiel finished, softly.

“You remember,” Dean’s voice was tipped with surprise.

Of course he remembered, though his recollection of it wasn’t the same as Dean’s. He remembered he’d come running in from his car and almost tripped over his own toes at the sight of the most gorgeous man he’d ever seen, tall and broad-shouldered, lit to impossible purity by nothing but a silhouette of lightning. Castiel had drawn himself up straight just so he could keep _breathing._ It wasn’t the only time Dean had made Castiel’s heart hit his throat, but it had been the first.

Then the lights had flickered back on, and Castiel had realized that it wasn’t just an illusion of lightning and storm, that Dean truly _was_ that beautiful even wide-eyed and startled—and here Castiel was, waterlogged and dripping on the floor and _staring_ with his mouth open.

Then, with nothing else to say, he’d pronounced “I would like some sourdough, please,” and Dean had _goggled_ at him.

(He didn’t know which of them had started laughing first, but Dean was still laughing when he pulled down a chair, and Castiel was sure that was the moment he’d realized they could be friends.)

“So after that… well, yeah.” Castiel could almost hear Dean’s shrug. “But I’d just chicken out every goddamned time. I mean, you’ve always said no when I asked if you wanted to hang out with us outside of the shop, y’know? So why would you…” Dean trailed off on a long, slow breath, and there was a soft ‘clunk’ on the other side.

Castiel blinked. “O-oh.” Was that all Castiel had to say for himself? Surely he could think of something more intelligent to say than that. Because he _had_ done exactly that.

“Yeah, I… gave up a bunch of times. Told myself, you know what? Friends is really freaking good—friends is enough. Then I’d get a smile out of you or you’d hang around just a little longer just to talk ‘cause you know I hate closing up alone. Or you’d give me that _look_ out of the corner of those damned blue eyes of yours like you know I’m being ridiculous and you just won’t put up with my bullshit… and fuck, there’d I’d go into the damned freefall all over again.” Dean laughed again, and this time there was something in it that ached, a little too familiar—not a lot of humor. “Sammy was so _done_ with me, man. He’s been threatening to plant something that I made into your order _himself_ , has been since long before any of this quarantine stuff started.”

Castiel choked out a shocked laugh. “ _What?_ ”

“Yeah, like, full on fucking middle school style.” Dean snorted derisively.

“But that… that doesn’t _work_ , Dean!” Castiel protested. That was only slightly less ludicrous than believing in the Tooth Fairy!

“You think I don’t know that? I’m a grown-ass adult!” Dean huffed. “Then, shit, my wrist popped red, and while I was just staring at it with my sleeve pushed up, Sammy dropped a whole stack of trays on the ground. Do you know what kind of a racket that makes? That overgrown asshole did a _victory dance_ around the kitchen while I practically needed _CPR._ ”

“Oh, _no_.” Castiel could imagine that, though—it was shocking how easily he could imagine it, Sam flailing around the kitchen while Dean threw his hands up in exasperation. He _loved_ hearing Dean tell his stories, all the drama of them. Castiel reached up to touch his mouth, feel the incredulous stretch of himself smiling—no, grinning, and there was a tear smearing hot on his cheeks to go with it. There was more than one, and he let them trickle and fall—there was no-one here to see it. “I hope nothing was ruined…?”

“Nah, it was just parchment paper and crumbs and flour dust, it was end of day. I made him clean it all up.” Dean snorted, and Castiel could almost see him shaking his head. “He’s such a bitch.”

“He’s happy for you,” Castiel noted, softly, tasting salt on his lips and licking it away.

“Yeah, well.” He heard Dean swallow. “ _I’m_ happy for me. For, um. Us? I know this is… I know it’s a lot. I get it, I mean, I’ve had two weeks to sit on this, and, uh…” Dean gulped. “I know I should have said something, not, y’know, _handed_ you something, I just…”

Dean trailed off. Castiel heard the question there—the shaky upturn of uncertainty, under Dean’s laughter, his bravado. He heard his own fear in the tilt of Dean’s voice—saw his own reserved quiet from the other side of Dean’s ebullience, his one-word responses into the phone because they were all he could squeeze out even as Dean poured himself empty.

 _Oh_.

He cleared his throat. Wiped his face. “Dean?”

“Uh-huh?”

“This is crazy.” Because it needed to be said, the outlandishness of it needed to hang in the air for a moment so that Castiel could look at it and let himself believe that this was _not a dream_.

This time, he heard Dean swallow. “Yeah, Cas. I… I know.” He fell silent.

“I… I wouldn’t have said ‘yes.’ If you’d asked,” Castiel admitted, and he heard Dean suck in a sharp, painful breath. “No! Not because… not… oh, _God_. This is _exactly_ my point,” and he blew out a long, exasperated breath at himself, putting his forehead in the palm of one hand. “Not because I didn’t _want it_. I wouldn’t have believed it. I would have thought you asking me out was a joke, or a misunderstanding. Dean, I’m horribly awkward. I can’t make conversation.” He waved a hand out wildly that he was well aware Dean couldn’t see, gesturing at his windowsill. “I grow _cacti!_ ”

“I know, Cas. In your knitting room.” There was almost something like a smile lilting in Dean’s voice, now, though. “You’ve told me all about them—including that they’re not cacti, they’re succulents. So clearly you do okay on the conversation thing.”

“Yes, because telling a person that you are appallingly attracted to that you talk to the ‘ _succulents_ ’ in your _knitting room_ is just a thing a normal person does!” Castiel retorted, and he didn’t know if the sound that came out of him was a scoff or a laugh or just a soundless exposition of his own utter ridiculousness.

Probably the latter, considering he was _looking_ at those succulents in that same room.

“’Appallingly?’ Uh-oh.”

Yes, Castiel could tell that he was being teased, now. He huffed loudly into the phone, and oh, Dean laughing, just for him—even just a soft little chuckle—was one of the best things he’d ever heard.

“But… Dean, I…” Castiel swallowed the hard knot of his own nerves, “I would have been so delighted. If you’d asked. And… I _would_ very much like to watch those movies with you. I think that would be a wonderful date.”

How many people had a first date with their soulmate bands already around their wrists? But since when had Castiel cared about what other people did? That didn’t mean that he didn’t want this _so badly._

Dean’s exhale into the phone was a soft gust—shaky, too. Relieved. Castiel should have noticed that before. “Yeah?”

Castiel nodded, and realized that of course Dean couldn’t see it. “Yeah,” he agreed.

“’Cause I’m gonna kiss you between each movie, you know that, right?” and there was a challenge in Dean’s voice, not just his words. _I’m not gonna back down. This is real. This is happening_. “Hell, I’m gonna kiss you before we _start_.”

Castiel cleared his throat from where it had tried to catch again. Dean was such a _gift_ , and Castiel couldn’t just keep taking and taking that generosity. He knew his voice was deep—he’d been told it was coarse, but right now, he could hear it in his own ears, and it was _very_ deep _._ “I’d like that,” he told Dean—he told _his soulmate_. Oh. He was not going to be able to think that for awhile without going back and checking himself. “I’d like that very much. May I, um. May I choose what we do afterwards?”

Dean’s voice was audibly brighter, quiet and relieved, “Oh! Yeah… sure, Cas, of course. Whatever you want.”

Castiel screwed up his courage and closed his eyes, unfolded his legs from under him to sit straight, but it was still a surprise when his voice came out soft and rough, but steady. “Then I would like to lick that ice cream you mentioned off your fingers, please. If you don’t mind.”

The silence on the other end lasted for long enough he thought he’d misstepped—too bold, too much, he still didn’t understand boundaries, apparently. When Dean spoke, though, it didn’t sound like a withdrawal or censure. It didn’t even sound careful. It sounded shakier than he was used to hearing from Dean, and curious, and a little breathless. “Thought… thought you didn’t like sweets, Cas.”

“I don’t. Not normally, no, but…” the frustration and the _wanting_ rushed from him, inelegant, plaintive. “You don’t know what it’s _done_ to me to see you licking filling or icing or what-have-you off your fingers all these months, Dean, you just _don’t!_ ” Castiel tipped his head back against his recliner and squeezed his eyes closed.

The pause in between sounded like the space between heartbeats, like Dean had stopped breathing.

“Oh, _sonofabitch_.” The airy rasp sounded like all of Dean’s breath leaving him at once. “Cas, you can’t _say_ shit like that when I’m not supposed to even get within _six feet_ of you.”

“Dean,” Castiel told him, firmly, opening his eyes and staring up at his ceiling, “I have been fantasizing about you for the better part of a year and a half. It is going to take a _very long time_ for us to get through everything I’ve wanted to do to you, so I think we should start planning now.”

He thought that sound might be Dean choking.

“Holy shit. You’re a fucking tease. I did not see that coming. I did _not_ see that coming.” But Dean was laughing, and the joy in it was glorious, infectious and beautiful, and Castiel had put that in his voice. _He’d_ done that, and Castiel was grinning so widely that his cheeks hurt. “Dammit, Cas! I cannot _wait_ for this quarantine to be over.”

Neither, thought Castiel, could he.

*_*_*_*

If he had been going back into the office, Castiel thought he probably would have remembered to button his cuffs down to his wrists. Except he wasn’t, and he didn’t. He _did_ put on actual clothes to get his work done—he still liked his routines—but the sight of the bands crossing his skin were just… well, Castiel _liked_ looking at them.

He didn’t _forget_ about them, he never could, but with every phone call the reality of them seemed to sink in deeper. His wrists never ached anymore, but sometimes they tingled rather sweetly, and Castiel wondered with a pleasant flip of his stomach if Dean was thinking about him. (He asked, once, genuinely curious. Dean’s answer—“You kidding? Always”—left Castiel red-faced the rest of the day.)

Castiel didn’t forget, he couldn’t forget how remarkable it was, how _blessed_ he was. However, he also never _saw_ anyone else who might attribute any kind of importance to the stripes on his wrist, any more than he would have noted them on any other stranger. There was a certain anonymity to the grocery store, to quarantine, though he still covered when he went out, not accustomed to the idea of bare wrists. When Castiel got home and shed his light spring hoodie, turning his hands over to admire the contrast of the red to his own paler skin, the succulents certainly didn’t care.

Dean was so _excited_ it left Castiel a little breathless and a little worried—he’d soon actually be _meeting_ all those people he’d heard so many stories about from Dean: Benny, Jo. Ellen, Bobby. Garth. Dean’s friends, the family he’d built after he’d gotten out of the military on a rebuilt knee.

“I should just not talk. What if they don’t like me?” Castiel asked, blunt and perfectly honest, because this was a question that truly did matter.

Dean snorted. “Cas, don’t even start with me. You’re fucking _awesome._ If you keep on I’m gonna go get Sammy. In case you forgot, he’s my brother, he _likes you,_ and he can _totally_ do the sad puppy eyes over the phone.”

Castiel believed that Sam could, in fact, do that. However, as Castiel considered himself a sensible person, he was more afraid of Sam going to get Jess. “But… they’re your _family_ ,” he insisted.

“Yeah?” and this time, he thought he _could_ hear Dean’s smirk. “Well, news flash, Cas, these stripes on my wrists don’t exactly spell out ‘stranger.’”

(That left Castiel blushing for most of the day, too.)

Castiel, though… he hadn’t told anyone. Not yet. Not even Balthazar, not Gabriel, not even _Anna._ He would have to report it to HR, eventually, as well, but… he hadn’t quite worked out what to _say._

He believed it was real, he couldn’t not—Castiel didn’t think he could go back to a life where it wasn’t. But he also didn’t know how to tell anyone about how he was so _fortunate._

Besides, the whole story sounded insane even _in his own head_ , he couldn’t even imagine what it sounded like aloud.

_“I Offered my soulmate a quarantine mask and his Response was a cupcake he slipped in with my croissant order. Oh, no, we weren’t dating, it was an accident. No, we haven’t had our first date yet.”_

Still insane.

Which was why being so distracted that Castiel entered a Zoom meeting with both wrists uncovered was _not_ a good idea.

Especially since it was with his family.

(But at least Hael’s microphone was muted when she found out.)

*_*_*_*

Two days after quarantine was lifted, Castiel knocked on Dean’s door with a six-pack of Sam Adams in one hand and a shaky smile on his face.

He had a million things to say and no words to say them with, a stupid nervous grin hiding in his stomach along with a terrible desire to flee. He’d changed his tie no fewer than six times and then realized how stupid it was that he’d even put _on_ a tie, but by then it was already done up, and he needed the armor of it. He’d wrapped a cashmere-blend scarf around his neck for reassurance, but it was June, and just too hot, and he’d discarded it in the car. He’d pulled his sleeves down to cover his wrists, then pulled them up to the elbow, and finally, just left the cuffs unbuttoned.

What if it was different in person? What if the conversations they’d had over the phone every day, easy, so shockingly _easy_ , had been an illusion of enforced separation? It seemed so simple to tease Dean when it was his voice purring in Castiel’s ear, but Castiel still lost his tongue half the time when he walked into the bakery once a week—all he would allow himself—and saw Dean standing behind the counter, too far away to touch, and grinning at him with just his eyes over his cherry pie mask.

His only reassurance was that more than once Sam had come out huffing, only to grab Dean by the back of his collar and haul him into the kitchen, loudly exclaiming, “Okay, I swear me and Jess were never this bad. I really thought this was going to get _better_ after you two guys got your stripes, not worse!” It typically left Castiel realizing with embarrassment just how long he and Dean had been standing there staring at each other.

The door swung open, and oh God. Dean was wearing a plaid flannel unbuttoned over a black Ledd Zeppelin t-shirt, but with the sleeves pushed up to both elbows. The ruby lines on each of his broad wrists should have not been any more vivid this close than they had been from across the bakery, but they _were._

From this close Castiel could see the dusting of gold freckles across his forearms interspersed with Dean’s battle scars, the bright contrast against the razor-clean edge of his soul bands. Dean wasn’t wearing a mask, and he was more gorgeous than he’d ever been. Castiel couldn’t remember if he’d ever tried to count the delicate spray of those sunspots across his proud nose before. If so, he’d lost the number. The full curve of Dean’s mouth was a sin Castiel couldn’t remember committing—oh merciful God in Heaven his _mouth_.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel greeted, staring, his voice a soft gruff rasp of appreciation.

Dean blinked at him, looking so startled that fear curled in Castiel’s chest. Dean’s hazel eyes flicked downwards, and it didn’t look like an appreciative look. More…

Confused?

Castiel followed Dean’s gaze down to his own hand.

The one that Castiel had automatically stuck out for Dean to _shake_.

He had never wanted to stab himself with a knitting needle quite so much as this moment.

But Dean’s whole expression brightened with mischief, and he took Castiel’s hand anyway, pumping it gently, grinning. “Hey, Cas.”

Dean didn’t let go of his hand, though.

Instead, Dean tugged Castiel towards him with a gentle yank, brought their joined hands upwards towards his smile, and pulled Castiel’s unbuttoned cuff free of his wrist with his _teeth_.

When Dean _kissed_ the inside of Castiel’s wrist where red crossed it—lush and openmouthed, with just a little bit of tongue—every goosebump on Castiel’s entire body stood up and saluted. He had lost his breath, he thought, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to try and find it again.

“Just ‘cause _you’re_ a tease, Cas,” Dean murmured, and the feeling of those lips and that whisper moving against the damp, sensitive, _sensitive_ skin of his inner wrist, the sight of Dean’s eyes peeking up at him jade-hued over the crossed red soulbond stripes on their skin, made Castiel want to bite back a _whine_. “Doesn’t mean that _I_ am.”

(He ended up finding out what Reylo referred to another day. But, as promised, the ice cream went to good use.)

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> The germ of this idea was inspired by the ladies and gents of Firefly Fiber Arts—many of whom put down their knitting, crocheting, and sewing projects to make masks in this time of need.
> 
> I'm not going to lie, I sort of love this world. I know it isn't precisely congruent with the way most people write soulmate AUs. But I nonetheless really hope you enjoyed my twist on the trope! Please, please let me know if you enjoyed it—I'm so nervous about it!


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